LOST AND FOUND

No-frills Jesuit center offers silence and solitude

The grounds of the 250-acre Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa., are shrouded in fog on a winter morning. The center offers five- or seven-day silent retreats for rest, contemplation and spiritual guidance. Kalim A. Bhatti • New York Times photos

The grounds of the 250-acre Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa., are shrouded in fog on a winter morning. The center offers five- or seven-day silent retreats for rest, contemplation and spiritual guidance. Kalim A. Bhatti • New York Times photos

The grounds of the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa., Dec. 21, 2011. The center provides peace, quite, and guidance for as little as $420. (Kalim A. Bhatti/The New York Times) -- PHOTO MOVED IN ADVANCE AND NOT FOR USE - ONLINE OR IN PRINT - BEFORE JAN. 1, 2012.

The grounds of the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa., Dec. 21, 2011. The center provides peace, quite, and guidance for as little as $420. (Kalim A. Bhatti/The New York Times) -- PHOTO MOVED IN ADVANCE AND NOT FOR USE - ONLINE OR IN PRINT - BEFORE JAN. 1, 2012.

The grounds of the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa., Dec. 21, 2011. The center provides peace, quite, and guidance for as little as $420. (Kalim A. Bhatti/The New York Times) -- PHOTO MOVED IN ADVANCE AND NOT FOR USE - ONLINE OR IN PRINT - BEFORE JAN. 1, 2012.

The grounds of the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa., Dec. 21, 2011. The center provides peace, quite, and guidance for as little as $420. (Kalim A. Bhatti/The New York Times) -- PHOTO MOVED IN ADVANCE AND NOT FOR USE - ONLINE OR IN PRINT - BEFORE JAN. 1, 2012.

Late in November I arrived at the Jesuit Center in the reclusive hills of Wernersville, Pa., on a blindingly dark and stormy night to begin a silent five-day retreat. Such a scenario might have compelled someone more compos mentis to turn around. But that was the point. As a 43-year-old mother of three wrung out from three years of panic attacks triggered by the specter of financial ruin, I needed a solid period of quiet to recombobulate. Cheaply.

I am neither Catholic nor anything in particular, but I yearned for a snippet of the no-frills spiritual solitude. The Jesuits, I’d read, were the guys to go to concerning such matters. Indeed, to engage in periods of quiet contemplation with a full-stop break from everyday life was central to the philosophy of the Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). It still is. Today, some 200 Jesuits are engaged full time in directing spiritual retreats at more than 20 centers in the United States.

But there were other reasons I’d opted for the Jesuit Center in Wernersville over, say, a spa vacation, yoga retreat or vision quest. For one thing, the center advertised an Arcadian setting and drivable proximity from my home in New York City. For another, the cost was $560 for five days, including room, board and a daily hourlong conversation with a spiritual director.

Moreover, the more luxe-sounding excursions I’d considered often seemed to involve a time commitment of a week or more, along with New Age locution that somehow did not sit right.

But while I’d had the notion that it would be tough to keep quiet for five days, I realized, on arrival, that I had not developed a textured sense of what I was getting into. The facility itself, an English Renaissance-style building constructed in the late 1920s, was gigantic and dark — attributes intensified by the resident Jesuits’ ubiquitously posted wish to keep the light bills low. Fantasies of sequestered holy men tending to herb gardens and homemade beer stills were combusted by industrial platters of green beans and pigs-in-blankets provided by Sodexo, the integrated food and facilities management services behemoth.

But there was also an ineffable sphinxiness about the place. For example, I got there an hour-and-a-half late the first night, and there was no one to tell me where to go or what I should be doing. The only signpost was a list of names and room numbers tacked to a corkboard, so I found mine and rollerbagged down the building’s spooky hallways until I tracked down my assigned spot. I creaked open the lockless door and found a jumbo crucifix resting on the bed pillow.

And there were crucifixes everywhere. It’s a Jesuit center. My fellow retreatants were mostly women my mother’s age or older, and to my eye, clearly devout and knowledgeable. They were not talk spoilers; in fact, virtually no one made eye contact.

But by the end of my five days, I’d come to see my room as my sanctum sanctorum. And I’d come to feel a strange closeness with my silent companions. All this was chaperoned by my spiritual director, Sister Barbara Singer.